All The Congressmen Pacs Can Buy

CHICAGO — In a recent guest column, Terry Michael advances the truly remarkable idea that the millions of dollars in political action committee money and honoraria that are flooding Congress are essentially harmless. He believes there is ``no hard evidence of how contributions change votes or thwart the public will and welfare.``

And by the by, he suggests, why worry if a few of the good ol` boys use public office for personal profit? Nobody gets hurt, and things used to be worse in the bad old days anyhow.

First, the quickest way to resurrect the bad old days, when it was acceptable for congressmen to accept money or favors from those with legislative interest, is to ignore the ethical pecadillos of our public officials.

Second, we may be closer to the bad old days than Michael thinks. Here`s how a representative of the Public Affairs Council (which gives political advice to businesses) assesses the methods used by some congressmen to get campaign contributions: ``It gets to be almost extortion, some of the phone calls and threatening remarks that members make.`` Under current law, in fact, congressmen do routinely pocket ``speaking fees`` and other favors from groups with legislative interests.

Third, no one can prove (fortunately) that congressional votes have been directly bought. But Michael is looking for the proverbial ``smoking gun`` in a Capitol where there is so much smoke you can`t see the gun. The color of the smoke is green: PACs gave nearly $150 million to House and Senate campaigns during the 1988 election cycle-the vast majority of it to incumbents, nearly all of whom were re-elected-and congressmen pocketed more than $24 million in honoraria between 1983 and 1987.

And the effects? For starters, how about a few recent lowlights from a list compiled by U.S. News & World Report magazine:

- The shattered savings and loan industry likes one federal agency`s

``go-slow approach`` to industry regulation, and lobbied successfully to keep the agency alive even though the agency cost $100 million to operate and was called ``a dismal failure`` in a congressional report. S&Ls gave nearly $619,000 to Congress.

- Utility companies lobbied successfully to restrict a method of financing that otherwise could have been used to help save taxpayers billions of dollars in utility costs. Utility PAC contributions to Congress amounted to $1.11 million.

- Big multinational corporations may get up to $914 million in new tax breaks (on top of $1 billion already received) unless Congress decides otherwise-an unlikely event in the face of $2.63 million in contributions from corporate PACs.

These items hit taxpayers directly in the wallet.

But what about the loss of public confidence in political institutions-confidence that is the underpinning of an effective democratic system? What about the loss of citizen influence, competitive elections and the hope that those who are elected will act in the public interest?

Michael insists the real problems are ``intellectual dishonesty and the dismally low level of individual political courage.`` I would suggest that the sources of these problems-and, in large part, their solutions-are to be found in that which Michael would have us ignore: We must change a corrupt campaign system that forces congressmen to become dependent on big special interest contributors and tighten lax ethics laws that now invite public officials to reap ``the goodies`` available to those in positions of power.